6 replies to this topic

[Mad Dog Morgan]

This is something I'd have liked to have a better understanding of. Are flamers worth it? They did receive a recent buff, but... do they work as intended? I always thought they were supposed to inflict a constant stream of heat on the enemy so as to get them to overheat, but... it seems that this isn't the case.

What are they good for outside of cooking internals? What should they be used on, if so, how many? Is one decent enough?

[Gaan Cathal]

Take one for annoying high-heat builds and anyone who's irritated by a huge ball of flame blocking their view. Be aware it'll overheat you before you overheat anyone else (not that you can overheat anyone else) and that it's taking up what could be an ML. That said, scooting around to the enemy back lines in the trial Spider and annoying PPC stalkers with them is amusing. You can fairly easily negate their dissipation and keep them either not firing or overheating every single time. Once the overheat-damage is in you might make a couple of incautious one overheat-kill themselves if they fail to notice you setting fire to them.

[aniviron]

They are good for nothing. Machine guns get a lot of discussion because the next lightest ballistic weapon is six tons, too much for a light, and lights need a viable ballistic for the ones which are forced to use them.

The flamer is much, much much much much worse than the machine gun in every single regard (now there's a damning statement if I have ever heard one) but it gets much less attention because for the same tonnage you can have a medium laser, which has historically been Battletech's workhorse.

The flamer has the shortest range in the game.
The flamer will overheat you, but not your opponent.
The flamer weighs as much as a medium laser and takes up an energy hardpoint but does less damage than anything else in the game.
The flamer does so little damage that its bonus in critting means you are still better off taking a medium laser to destroy internals.
The flamer is actually kinda hard to aim.
The flamer doesn't really make it hard to see for your opponent, contrary to popular belief.

This list should speak for itself.

[Skyfaller]

Vaskadar, on 19 June 2013 - 12:34 AM, said:

This is something I'd have liked to have a better understanding of. Are flamers worth it? They did receive a recent buff, but... do they work as intended? I always thought they were supposed to inflict a constant stream of heat on the enemy so as to get them to overheat, but... it seems that this isn't the case.

What are they good for outside of cooking internals? What should they be used on, if so, how many? Is one decent enough?

I tried an 8-energy blackjack with full flamers and its pointless to use them.

Facts:

1- You heat up in 1:1 much as your enemy does up until 90% heat is reached. After that enemy stops heating up.
2- Flamer damage is pinpoint not area so its really a small laser with a different firing animation when it comes to aiming.
3- Flamer animation blocks your view more than the enemy mech. You have to aim the flame at their cockpit to blind them.. you on the other hand get blinded completely.


The biggest problem is #1 and the current heat mechanics. With an 8 flamer I can heat an enemy mech to 90% in just 2 or 3 seconds. The problem then is that I have no heat left to keep applying damage via flamer nor use any other energy weapon (heat!). The enemy can still fire off a massive alpha hit on me and overheat shut down... which is an excellent trade off since if it hits he will do ten times more damage than ive done to him.

So I tried a 6 flamer 1 gauss blackjack ... that worked a bit better but the enemy still could dump a massive damage alpha in my face after I flamed it to 90% heat.

The only mech that can literally use flamers effectively is the highlander 732.

HGN-732

3 flamers
1 gauss
3 ssrm
19 DHS
3 JJets
full armor.

Practically heat neutral.

[Leafia Barrett]

The two things I can think of that might make Flamers worth it are:
-If it was actually capable of overheating an enemy mech to shutdown
-If it had some kind of lasting "status effect", so to speak; dealing minor damage and not-so-minor heating to the target well after you've stopped hitting them

[Mad Dog Morgan]

So, literally no point whatsoever. They need a heat increase to enemies and allow us to overheat them, and continue to heat them up, otherwise there's no point in using them. It'd be a nasty way of finishing off people that alpha'd and overheated, by getting their internals to overcook.

[Robobrob]

I'm so sad they still suck the big one. I love the support weapons/items that, but unfortunately they're all nearly useless (NARC, flamer, MG, tag).

I would love to see one of three things on the flamer:

a) ability to crit ammo through armor
or
b ) create no heat on yourself - that makes the 90% target heat cap reasonable
or
c) Exponential damage - i.e. as the flamers concentrate on a single area the damage increases exponentially. I imagine a difficult mechanic, so not much hope for that one.

Edited by Robobrob, 19 June 2013 - 12:15 PM.